After being fired from his plumbing job, he accompanied his brother David on an acting job. When one of the other actors fainted, David got Leo to take the role.
Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy" by Ronald L. Smith, pg. 188-189. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387
Claimed he and the Dead End Kids used to be friends with Humphrey Bogart, until one day, while Bogart was taking a nap after a hard day of acting and the boys threw a pack of lit firecrackers in through his window.
He left the Bowery Boys after his father, Bernard, also a frequent co-star in the series, was killed in an auto accident in 1955.
He was president of his high school drama club.
His first wife left him for the same man he went into business on a radio program - Groucho Marx. From there, Groucho became Leo's first "husband-in-law" and one of his best friends.
Interred at Molinos Cemetery, Los Molinos, California, USA.
Removed from the final cover of The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album because he requested a fee.
When Gorcey was making one of his few non-Dead End Kids/East Side Kids/Bowery Boys films, 1941's Out of the Fog (1941), he repeatedly blew a simple line of dialog. Fed up, director Anatole Litvak stormed over to him and shouted, "Gorcey, as an actor, you stink!" Stung by this rebuke, Gorcey let fly with a burst of retaliatory fireworks of his own - "Don't you ever, ever scream at me like that again!," Gorcey shouted back, and stormed off the set. A few hours later, he was back, did the scene again ... and blew the line again. This time, Litvak walked over to him quietly, calmly and whispered in his ear, "Gorcey, as an actor, you still stink. And notice that, this time, I'm not shouting.".